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by Ed Toombs Spring has sprung, which can only mean that our erstwhile tennis professionals are getting lots of red clay ? or green Har-Tru, for those contesting events in the USA -- on their nice clean socks. Monica Seles has been the story on the women's tour so far in the young clay court season, barging to the title at Amelia Island without losing a set and reaching the quarterfinals at Hilton Head as of this writing. The popular veteran appears set to challenge at the French Open, where Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport will also be looking to triumph at Roland-Garros for the first time. A dark horse in the Paris picture might be Elena Likhovtseva. The native of Kazakhstan, now based in Russia, appears determined to have a career year in 2000. Likhovtseva has yet to win a title this year, but has been worrying some of the best players in the world, defeating Serena Williams at the Australian Open and Mary Pierce at Amelia Island, before very nearly toppling the red hot Seles at Hilton Head in a third set tie-break. By the way, remember the octogenarian gentleman who made headlines at the US Open last year by serving as a ball person at the tournament? He seems to have started something. At Hilton Head one of the "ball kids" was a sprightly 64-year-old named Tom Moylett. Before long, Nathalie Tauziat may be younger than all the ball kids! Next week the Fed Cup begins, with the first match under its new format of four-team round robin tournaments. It will be interesting to see how the redesigned competition is accepted, as some ? particularly in the USA ? would like to see the Davis Cup adopt a similar format. Meanwhile, the men kicked off their serious preparation for the French Open with the first European clay events, a minor event in Estoril, Portugal, and a Masters Series competition in Monte Carlo. As is often the case, with the depth of clay-court talent and many stars struggling to adjust to the slow, slippery surface, the results in Monte Carlo were on the wild and crazy side. By the third round 13 of the 16 seeded players had been ousted, including the top seven! Standing out among the fallen favourites at the Monte Carlo Country Club was the young Slovak Dominik Hrbaty, whose form has been as impressive as anyone's on clay so far this year. Hrbaty had already surprised the experts by reaching the French Open semifinals last year, beating Kafelnikov and Rios en route. This year he has declared serious intentions on the dirt. The 22-year-old sparkled on clay in Davis Cup two weeks ago, achieving the noteworthy feat of inflicting straight set defeats upon Fernand o Meligeni and Gustavo Kuerten in Brazil. In Monte Carlo he is continuing on his tear, beating Kafelnikov again as well as one of the pre-tournament favourites, Alex Corretja. Hrbaty is also revealing himself to be a colourful character who does not hesitate to provoke the opposition. In Brazil his supreme confidence and constant smiles irritated the Brazilians greatly: Jaime Oncins admitted to trying to "drill" Dominik during their doubles match, and a frustrated Kuerten taunted the Slovak after his rare unforced errors during their singles confrontation. After beating Kafelnikov again in Monaco, Hrbaty freely admitted that the excellent Russian is a very comfortable opponen t for him. "I love playing him," said the Slovak. "He doesn't hit it too hard or too soft. I can just hit the ball and not ask myself questions." Yevgeny did not take too kindly to this appraisal of his game by the young upstart: "He can say anything he wants - but the bottom line is that when I am playing my best, no-one wants to play against me," he replied. "It's just a matter of time and those guys are going to regret what they've said." Dominik may not be making many friends, but with his on-court performances and off-court remarks he is certainly influencing people. |